Sorry, did I say obsessions? I meant hobbies. I don't have an obsessive personality at all!
Anyway, I have been using a mountain bike to ride to and from work for several years now. I do this because I enjoy it rather than for money or environmental reasons, but also because it helps keep me reasonably fit. Even more fun though was my discovery of the wonderful thing that is the road bike, which I guess some would refer to as a "racing bike" although I doubt I'll ever race mine. My girlfriend and I got into road cycling last summer, clocking up hundreds of miles together in the process, and we've not looked back.
The sad thing though is that when I tell others about it I find it so difficult to communicate to them exactly how much fun it is. I think there are a couple of reasons. Firstly very few people actually know how to ride a bike. By this I don't mean how to stay on it and make it go where you want it to; I mean how to ride on the road safely and competently as a part of the traffic. It's amazing how with just a little knowledge and practice one becomes confident riding on the roads, but so few people actually take the time to learn or try it.
The second thing is that so few people have actually experienced real cycling. The majority of cyclists are to be found on either on cheap full suspension mountain bikes, weighing approximately two metric tonnes, or on some ancient beast from deep dark depths of the garden shed. Yes okay, I admit I'm a bike snob, but to me the experience of riding a decent road bike, which is infinitely lighter, rolls forever on skinny tyres and will easily top 40mph down a good hill is cycling, and there's no substitute to be found in a creaking lump of scrap metal.
So to this end there is little I enjoy more than pulling out my road bike on a Sunday morning when the roads are quiet and going for a ride, usually somewhere between 20 and 50 miles. The countryside in south Oxfordshire is absolutely beautiful, and it gives me time to think.
What has this got to do with hypnosis you may ask?
Well, recently I set out on a bike ride and began to notice certain things about the way in which my mind was working over the course of one of these rides. I have found that whenever I start off I am concentrating consciously on the road ahead, but after too long I realise that my mind has wondered off and is thinking about other things. My eyes are still looking where I'm going, and I'm still watching the road, but that part of things just seems to happen whilst my conscious thoughts are wandering freely elsewhere. The time seems to fly by so quickly. I have also temporarily left any trouble or concerns behind; everything seems so much simpler.
Sound familiar?
Replace the road with the voice of a hypnotist and the parallel becomes obvious; cycling is inducing a state of trance.
Now, I know that driving a car is of course one of the most frequently cited examples of a naturally occurring trance state and I am well aware of this when I'm behind the wheel, but when I'm out on my bike I seem to experience something rather more profound. Partly this might be down to the way I have never particularly enjoyed driving a car anyway, but I think the main reason for this is that cycling is a form of exercise, and physical exercise also induces trance.
Something else that feels very good is when I get back home after a long ride and just collapse into the softest chair I can find. There's something about the way in which all of my muscles feel tired but my mind is still very active that is very conducive to zoning out completely for quarter of an hour or so, and again I recognise this now as a state of trance. Nobody has yet actually tried hypnotising me whilst I've been in that state, but I bet I would go incredibly deep if they did.
So is this why I enjoy cycling, because I enjoy being in trance as much as I do? It's just one of many reasons I'm sure, but it's certainly up there.
2 comments:
I remember spending a couple of weeks sticking labels on bottles of beer at a micro-brewery and far from being mind-numbing and long; the time flew by and I found myself really enjoying it!
Gotta love the trance!
I bicycle quite a bit, especially in the summer, and love it. And yes, it's like driving, you go into a sort of "Road Movie Trance" experience.
Although, I have to say, when this happens to me, I do not get a "slowing" of the internal dialog, which is the defining characteristic of trance for me.
Cheers
Virtual Visitor
Post a Comment